23/04: Analyzing the Coming Conservative Schism: The Attack on Wal-Mart Cons?
Category: American Culture
Posted by: A Waco Farmer
For a review of the earlier Wal-Mart discussions:
"I like Wal-Mart"
and "More Wal-Mart and Crunchy Conservatism."
Hat tip to Tocqueville for sending this provocative piece from the American Spectator, by Mark Gauvreau Judge, "Right-Wingtips Revisited," which speaks to the conservative article of faith that "there are objective standards of beauty."
From the essay:
I believe that there are objective standards of beauty. Furthermore, the man who respects them respects God. As theologians from Hans Urs von Balthasar to Pope Benedict XVI have explored, there is a correlation between beauty -- objective beauty -- and the divine. Beauty causes in us a certain reaction, a quickening of the soul and senses, that make us believe that we are in the presence -- or near the presence -- of the eternal and unchanging.
Beauty is a kind of window, or rather a hint, of the hereafter. I believe that as our culture has become more secular, we have forgotten God as the inspiration to do anything. Either that, or we have so fully bought into the idea of Christ as a downtrodden, beaten, squishy soft liberal who ate with whores and beggars that we have forsaken the idea that he may have also looked, well, beautiful. Objectively beautiful.
Judge also presents the other side of the argument:
But of course, Christ transcended the traditional idea of beauty -- even as he can also embody it. Beauty was now not only an objective aesthetic standard but is represented in the love that goes "to the very end" -- through derision, humiliation, hatred and torture. This beauty, as Benedict writes, "proves to be mightier than falsehood and violence." It is the how the beautiful "received a new depth and a new realism."
But Judge concludes that:
...this did not mean that objective standards of beauty were abolished. This, sadly, is a fact that has been forgotten in our culture, and in much of conservatism.
Yes, Christ wore simple clothes -- but I'd be willing to wager that he was the most physically beautiful human who ever lived, and that He can be found more in Mozart than in rap. We on the right should not be so blinded by reverse snobbery or false ACLU populism that we shrink from being the best.
This piece, which represents a thoughtful strain of neo-traditionalist conservatism, may show the impossibility of holding together the late-twentieth century conservative coalition. American conservatism must be distinctly American to thrive.
Ronald Reagan was arguably the "most physically beautiful human" to be president of the United States, but he fails the white-glove test when it comes to this definition of high culture. Can a Medieval conservatism, with its foundation in Old World Catholicism and Renaissance art and Greek philosophy, ever be more than a minority position in the United States?
That is, can a school of thought that rejects populism, evangelicalism, democracy and Wal-Mart ever overcome the charge of "snobbery" (to use Judge's phrase) and win favor with the most democratic people on the face of the earth? Or is that the thrust of all this? Is this merely political suicide on the part of an element of conservatism that would rather be right than win elections? Would rather be clean than dirty? Would rather be voices crying in the wilderness than face the degradation of pulling levers of power in a world in which the best decision is often the lesser of two evils?
Also, Judge's original "Right-Wingtips," which begins with an attack on the artistry of Gretchen Wilson and in which Judge labels himself a "conservative metrosexual" (and coins the term "metro-con"), is well worth reading.
In the name of full disclosure: I am a big Gretchen Wilson fan.
And last but definitely not least, the reaction piece to the original Judge article from J.R. Dunn in The American Thinker is brilliant and well worth your time. Here is a brief excerpt:
The other thing that leaps from these proposals is their elitism. Both essays [refers to Rod Dreher's "Crunchy Cons" as the other one] make large play of Wal-Mart and the kind of people who shop there. I don’t think I have to explain what’s wrong with this. Conservatism emerged from cult status in the mid-60s by embracing the common values of this country. Either of these proposals would collapse it back into culthood so fast you’d never hear the bang.
"I like Wal-Mart"
and "More Wal-Mart and Crunchy Conservatism."
Hat tip to Tocqueville for sending this provocative piece from the American Spectator, by Mark Gauvreau Judge, "Right-Wingtips Revisited," which speaks to the conservative article of faith that "there are objective standards of beauty."
From the essay:
I believe that there are objective standards of beauty. Furthermore, the man who respects them respects God. As theologians from Hans Urs von Balthasar to Pope Benedict XVI have explored, there is a correlation between beauty -- objective beauty -- and the divine. Beauty causes in us a certain reaction, a quickening of the soul and senses, that make us believe that we are in the presence -- or near the presence -- of the eternal and unchanging.
Beauty is a kind of window, or rather a hint, of the hereafter. I believe that as our culture has become more secular, we have forgotten God as the inspiration to do anything. Either that, or we have so fully bought into the idea of Christ as a downtrodden, beaten, squishy soft liberal who ate with whores and beggars that we have forsaken the idea that he may have also looked, well, beautiful. Objectively beautiful.
Judge also presents the other side of the argument:
But of course, Christ transcended the traditional idea of beauty -- even as he can also embody it. Beauty was now not only an objective aesthetic standard but is represented in the love that goes "to the very end" -- through derision, humiliation, hatred and torture. This beauty, as Benedict writes, "proves to be mightier than falsehood and violence." It is the how the beautiful "received a new depth and a new realism."
But Judge concludes that:
...this did not mean that objective standards of beauty were abolished. This, sadly, is a fact that has been forgotten in our culture, and in much of conservatism.
Yes, Christ wore simple clothes -- but I'd be willing to wager that he was the most physically beautiful human who ever lived, and that He can be found more in Mozart than in rap. We on the right should not be so blinded by reverse snobbery or false ACLU populism that we shrink from being the best.
This piece, which represents a thoughtful strain of neo-traditionalist conservatism, may show the impossibility of holding together the late-twentieth century conservative coalition. American conservatism must be distinctly American to thrive.
Ronald Reagan was arguably the "most physically beautiful human" to be president of the United States, but he fails the white-glove test when it comes to this definition of high culture. Can a Medieval conservatism, with its foundation in Old World Catholicism and Renaissance art and Greek philosophy, ever be more than a minority position in the United States?
That is, can a school of thought that rejects populism, evangelicalism, democracy and Wal-Mart ever overcome the charge of "snobbery" (to use Judge's phrase) and win favor with the most democratic people on the face of the earth? Or is that the thrust of all this? Is this merely political suicide on the part of an element of conservatism that would rather be right than win elections? Would rather be clean than dirty? Would rather be voices crying in the wilderness than face the degradation of pulling levers of power in a world in which the best decision is often the lesser of two evils?
Also, Judge's original "Right-Wingtips," which begins with an attack on the artistry of Gretchen Wilson and in which Judge labels himself a "conservative metrosexual" (and coins the term "metro-con"), is well worth reading.
In the name of full disclosure: I am a big Gretchen Wilson fan.
And last but definitely not least, the reaction piece to the original Judge article from J.R. Dunn in The American Thinker is brilliant and well worth your time. Here is a brief excerpt:
The other thing that leaps from these proposals is their elitism. Both essays [refers to Rod Dreher's "Crunchy Cons" as the other one] make large play of Wal-Mart and the kind of people who shop there. I don’t think I have to explain what’s wrong with this. Conservatism emerged from cult status in the mid-60s by embracing the common values of this country. Either of these proposals would collapse it back into culthood so fast you’d never hear the bang.
